Hooray for comcast! You don't need a rule for obvious abuse. There are no rules about how many sugar packets or free happy hour snacks you can take at a restaurant either. I am tired of people taking advantage of the rest of us and rationalizing their actions by saying there was no rule against it. There are too many rules as it is because people refuse to have common sense or common courtesy.

just another example of comcast's awful service. after multitudes of problems with their "digital" cable and internet, missed appointments, and a useless referral to comcast's consumer advocacy group (who, ironically, didn't even return my call!) i finally switched to verizon and direct tv. i now get MUCH better service and actually pay less. if you are having problems with comcast in any capacity, don't hold your breath waiting for them to get it fixed.

That kind of concerns me because I am thinking about telecommuting in the future and I would use Comcast cable Internet. DSL isn't up to spec and Fios probably won't be offered where I live for a long time. I'd hope that if you exceeded whatever arbitrary limit they decide to have any particular day that you could tell them exactly how much bandwidth you would need and that they'd let you pay for that amount and not complain about it in the future. But it really is dishonest to say unlimited access when in fact they decide to set arbitrary limits. I read an article about the same thing happening with Netflix. Claiming to allow ulimited access to movies with the only limit being you can hold no more than X movies at a time, for example say 5, and yet limiting access to movies when some customers would send their 5 movies back much quicker and more frequently than other customers. They will never get my business. Unfortunately, I'm kind of hooked into this Internet thing. Really they should have no problem stating a bandwidth limit. It may be so high that it is virtually unlimited for most users. But it would allow those who have high bandwidth needs or uses to easily determine whether they need some other kind of service.

I just read the Boston Globe article. Just pitiful. The customer service were not even aware of the limit when one guy called to see if he could upgrade his service. Even if they want to keep their bandwidth limit a secret, why didn't they offer the people they cutoff the option to buy higher grade service?

Presumably, the "average" user of the service should cosist of a mix of low impact users and high impact users. If Comcast is artificially capping the activity of the high users, then the average doesn't fairly reflect the actual usage patterns.

I looked at the "Fair Access Policy" at HughesNet linked to in the column. Even with their heaviest user plan ("business account"), the cap is set at 1.25GB of continuous download. Or about the size of a single movie download or operating system disk image.

I operate an Internet web hosting provider and I charge my clients for the bandwidth their sites generate. As part of my business model, I arrange for enough bandwidth capacity to cover a reasonable amount of simultaneous client usage and a surge capacity for those times when usage spikes. I am always very clear about what is available and what the costs are.

I expect my clients to use what they have contracted for and to pay more for greater usage. But I don't advertise "all you can eat" the way that Comcast and other ISPs do. If I can't support a client's bandwidth needs then I'll ask them to leave. The basic problem is that they are advertising all you can eat and then penalize their clients who accept the deal.

It would be more honest of them to forgo apparent unlimited service and offer specific usage pricing sufficient to allow them to expand capacity accordingly.

Seems to be more to the story then is being lead on. I'm sure Comcast didn't just call one day and say you are using too much bandwidth *click* and wait a month or two to cut service. This user either had a virus, an unlocked wireless network or just abused the service. The story didn't mention that she even questioned or excluded issues with her computer or network if she had one. Instead she just wanted to know how much bandwidth she could use and her question went unanswered. Sounds to me like she was advised of the problem and she didn't do anything to correct it, so they cut her off.

I have had Comcast's internet on a LAN with 4 computers in my household for at least 5 years (although not always named Comcast). We do everything on them like telecommuting, playing games online, downloading and uploading videos etc... These computers are used for several hours every day doing these tasks so I consider us slightly above average users of the service. I have never had a call or even a letter sent to me such as this. If I ever do I would instantly think I have a virus or a hacker and not be concerned about how much bandwidth I had to use to get to this point.

This .01 percent of customers who have been shut down must really be cutting into the bandwidth for this to even come up, either with a virus/hacker, flagrant overuse of the product or are just not working with Comcast to form a solution to their overuse. Comcast even says they work it out 75 percent of the time. No major company would just pull a number out of the air and not be able to back it up in court.

Comcast may say "unlimited access" for their HOME service but they mean to an average or even above-average home user, not someone who plans on running an 8,000 user based WAN across the state or some video pirate downloading thousands of videos a day. Hearing "unlimited access" from ANY home use ISP doesn't make me think, well I guess I can get a huge file server now and host a site like Google or Youtube without consequence. There are other more expensive services for that.

On the note that they don't make public how much is too much, I can't blame them. The only people who care are the people NOT using the HOME service as intended anyway. If they set a limit, abusers would then know exactly how much they can use without being cut off, making the rest of the users suffer because they don't want to spend more money for a service that is more suitable for their use. If you are concerned with bandwidth limits then get a different, more expensive ISP that tells you how much you can use and let us use Comcast's service as it was intended, HOME USE!

To all the fascists out there who think Comcast should be allowed to NOT disclose CONTRACT terms and then hold customers to those same terms should move to the USSR (oh yeah, even THEY got a clue and disbanded!).
Instead, please move back to whatever third world country form which you came and stop clogging the Post's comments areas.

I don't care WHAT the customers were doing. In this society, you need to be told the rules and then be dealt with fairly for not following them. It might not be so egregious of Comcast if they DID NOT advertise unlimited usage in their advertising. They can't entice you with one claim, hide the true claim and then boot you for not following rules they never share, or don't even KNOW themselves (via the ALWAYS clueless excuses for cust. svc. reps they employ without training)! That's a classic bait and switch.

Where's the FTC? Oh yeah, fighting the spam/spyware makers hiding in former Soviet countries...

Comcast service has been horrid since they took over Adelphia in our area. Last week internet worked fairly consistently during the day but would lose the IP address each evening. I even had to run to the local coffee house for "wifi and a chai" to finish uploading photos to Flickr. Now I wonder if it's a capping issue. I don't think we upload that much, but these 10 megapixel digital cameras sure don't make it hard to do so.

I HATE calling their customer service though, it's such a waste of time.

My brother had the same problem with his Verizon wireless plan. At the time he signed up he was told it was for unlimited useage. He chose Verizon for that very reason. he could not get broadband internet access where he was living at the time and it was essential for his job. He loved being able to pop open his laptop anywhere and work. But then came the notice he was using too much bandwidth. He and I read his contract very carefully and neither of us found any limits specified. After a very irritating phone call with Verizon customer service, I found out the limit was for the billing period! I asked why the did not mention that little point when they were told he was a telecommuter, their respons was he should have read his contract more closely. When I explained to the rep I was representing him as his attorney, their attitude changed and they agreed to release him from his contract and buy back his wireless card. They would not reinstate his service, which was all he wanted. The fact there was NO mention of any limits in the contract angered me, and soon we will see if the courts agree with me.

Read the Comcast AUP ... it's online. I don't see unlimited consumption as a feature, just reasonable expectations on speed. Mbs and Mb are two entirely different measurements ;}.

It's not fair for the majority of users to pay for the infrastructure required for the minorty of users ... small minority. I'll be you that a standard deviation of users consume a lions share of the bandwidth. What do you propose Comcast does to protect this resource ... bill us for the .1%?

This is not 'usual and customary' Internet usage. This is abuse ... and we are paying for it.
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Interesting that all the comments are based on "unlimited use" as a advertising statement of fact and the company actions are based on "undefined limited use" as policy. Sure glad I don't have to defend the latter position in court. Where is the FTC on this?

No, they don't need to bill everyone for that .1%. A decent business would simply state what the limit is. And for that .1% that exceeds the limit, they would either make that .1% pay for more service or tell them they won't/can't provide service for them any longer. I would have no objection to them cutting off people who exceeded a clearly stated limit. And if they had to periodically adjust the limit that would be fine as well. They can be honest about their service and customers can make informed decisions.

Using up to the limit is not abuse. It's using what you paid for. If the company finds they can't provide service at previously stated limits, they should lower limits. That effectively raises the price, but so be it. Food providers have been doing a long time. The same size package, but at least it tells you the content amount on the package.

And I don't accept the argument that stating a limit would enable abusers to download right up to the limit causing other users to suffer. All they have to do is set the limit so that no user can cause other users to suffer when operating within the limit. If your network can only handle X bandwidth. And you plan to have Y customers, set the bandwidth limits per customer at X/Y. Of course this is oversimplified calculation since some days and times are more busy than others and also because a person could possibly use up their bandwidth limit in 24 hours or 24 days. But as a non-tech non-network person, I'd put money on it not being an overly complicated problem either. It can be solved. They are just handling it in a ridiculous manner now. Certainly no one can blame them for being more concerned about the other 99.9% of customers, but a little honest, a clear statement of what you get for your money, would not hurt.

Well, the real problem here is not that Comcast isn't telling its customers what their expectations are. It's that these customers are blocking the tubes.

I just the other day got an internet that was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?

Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially...

They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck.

It's a series of tubes.

And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.

It's up to Comcast to keep these tubes orderly and clean, I say.

Thank you, Sen. Stevens! Good to see you're on the case...

- RP

I'm from the government. I'm here to help. =P

I'm just wondering what the Globe's criteria were for using the word "increasing" to describe the number of people who are getting kicked off by Comcast for excessive usage... The story quotes three, which seems like a pretty thin thread for a "trend" story. You can find three people who have experienced literally anything....

Rob: While I'm here, and off-topic, I've never written to thank you for your lifesaving article "Your Shiny New Toy Needs Attention" http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/23/AR2006122300023_pf.html
which should be Scotch-taped to every PC sold in America. We recently set up a wireless network at our house resulting in our 1.5-year-old Hewlett-Packard PC being connected to the Internet for the first time. I knew nothing about AVG and Windows Defender, for example -- my main defense is that I mostly use a Mac... Things are running swimmingly, thanks so much.

I have Comcast and have had nothing but trouble in the beginning. I had to install and figure out my Internet connection problems myself. The technicians could not figure it out. My connection got cut off because someone called to say I was moving (it was not me). Great security! So this does not suprise me.

This sounds a lot like Comcast's attempt to deal with spam-bots (computers infected with a virus that cranks out spam). If that's the case I'm all for it. They should however disclose that if they suspect that your computer has been hijacked and steps aren't taken to resolve the issue they will shut down your connection. I have Comcast, frequently work form home on a VPN connection and they've never said squat to me about my usage.

To the person whose connection was/is dropping every night. We had the same problem a while back and couldn't get Comcast to deal with it as an intermittent problem. As in: yes I have a connection right now (at 2pm in the afternoon) but I didn't last night or the night before when I called. Because Comcast has a contract with the city of Seattle, the city has an agency to deal with complaints. I finally fired of an email to them and some one from Comcast got back to me the next day providing me with her direct number. After a 20 minute conservation she agreed to send someone out first thing in the morning. The guy who showed up actually knew what was going on (as opposed to previous technicians who all wanted me to recite the problems again). The first thing he did was climb the pole and check the connection. Guess what, the line from our house wasn't hooked up properly. He fixed it and we've had steady internet ever since

This sounds a lot like Comcast's attempt to deal with spam-bots (computers infected with a virus that cranks out spam). If that's the case I'm all for it. They should however disclose that if they suspect that your computer has been hijacked and steps aren't taken to resolve the issue they will shut down your connection. I have Comcast, frequently work form home on a VPN connection and they've never said squat to me about my usage.

To the person whose connection was/is dropping every night. We had the same problem a while back and couldn't get Comcast to deal with it as an intermittent problem. As in: yes I have a connection right now (at 2pm in the afternoon) but I didn't last night or the night before when I called. Because Comcast has a contract with the city of Seattle, the city has an agency to deal with complaints. I finally fired of an email to them and some one from Comcast got back to me the next day providing me with her direct number. After a 20 minute conservation she agreed to send someone out first thing in the morning. The guy who showed up actually knew what was going on (as opposed to previous technicians who all wanted me to recite the problems again). The first thing he did was climb the pole and check the connection. Guess what, the line from our house wasn't hooked up properly. He fixed it and we've had steady internet ever since

Not only don't they spell out what the real conditions of their service are, but they also sell you 6 or 8 Mbps, but don't guarantee it! "Up to" 6 Mbps! What if you got cable TV for "up to" 30 days a month, or could only buy "up to a gallon of milk.

This is just another example of how ludicrous American telecom services are -- oh, I mean "information services."

If you think Comcast knows whonis on there net they don't always know. You have to question and get the facts.

This has been a problem since day one on the internet. The very first internet provider who offered an unlimited plan when what they really mean is their definition of unlimited. This flat out wrong and a sign that the lawyers are getting ahead of society. There is no word in the English language with as much abuse and inaccuracy of meaning as unlimited. Its gotten so bad that I'm working on starting a site dedicated to the word "unlimited*" since the asterisk version of the word obviously has its own meaning.

I recently recieved a letter from comcast about using to much bandwidth. I am not a "Spammer" and i am not infected with anything; I just move ALOT of data around ALL day. If I'm Paying for 6mbit of "unlimited" Internet then by golly i'm going to use it. If the company can't control and deliever its promises of unlimited internet usage then they need to rethink their infastructure. Out of rage I wrote an FTP script to download large files, delete them, and download them again. Wrote another one just for upload to max out my bandwidth when i'm not using it. I'm just waiting for them to shut off my internet. If they can't provide me the service that they promise then they don't deserve my business.

OK, show of hands: How many of the people here writing positive posts about Comcast have been paid by them? I mean, c'mon, folks... how could anyone possibly argue that unlimited usage means anything other than... unlimited?

And really, what's the downside of just stating the terms of usage in the agreement? Anyone else wonder if there isn't some collusion with the RIAA? Perhaps it's not the quantity of downloads so much as the nature of what's being downloaded?

I would point out that the first comment noted here must be a corporate shill, but the alternative was too perplexing to contemplate.

p.s. To this person. They are using too much of my time with too little of their common sense. Please remit an additional 5$ surcharge.

The problem with Comcast's rule is that it does not provide any system of monitoring your own use. It would be one thing if there was a hard and fast line that told you that you could only use so much bandwidth per month. They would also then need to provide a system of checking how much you have used. In a world where mounting amounts of information are available online, it is not unreasonable for someone to be running some sort of home-based business and run into these issues. Mine are as follows:

1. Service was cut off completely without warning.
2. When customer service was called, they reported no problem.
3. Upon thrid call, they informed me that we would need to talk to the 'abuse department'
4. The Abuse Department is a voicemail machine that you have to leave a message on and wait for them to get back to you.
5. The Abuse department does not communicate in any other way than this method, either to customers or to the service reps.
6. Once I spoke to the abuse department, they informed us that I had exceeded the limit and we would be given a second chance. I needed to stay in a "safe area" of use and not exceed again.
7. When asked what the limit was, I was informed that it changes and we should stay under it.
8. I switched to a professional line and have not had problems since.

The amount I downloaded was about 400Gb in one month. I do video work across the net and download and upload large video files. It is not possible to limit the amount as I need all those assets to do my job. It is unfortunate that comcast has such a strangle hold on the area it 'provdes' service to. If there was a competitor, I would definitely try them in a heartbeat. Once Verizon gets their Fios optical in our area, I am going to that.

How come monopolization of the cable companies is allowed? Why can't I choose between Comcast or Cox or Other? Aren't we a capitalistic society where competition is encouraged?

Comcast called my house a few weeks ago and left the same kind of threatening message saying that we had to reduce our internet usage or else get cut off. My wife called the Comcast guy back and tried to find out exactly what the bandwidth usage limit actually is. Just like what happened to the other folks mentioned here, the Comcast rep refused to specify what the usage is.

The kicker is that the Comcast person told my wife that we should subcribe to a 'professional' service level. My wife asked for more information about a 'professional service' upgrade, and the Comcast rep gave her a number to call. When my wife called the number, it turned out to be a subsription pr0n0graphy service! My wife got very irate about this, and called a Comcast customer service rep. The customer service rep apologized and said that it was abusive for the other guy to have given her the pr0n information.

My main gripe threefold: 1) they should at least tell us what the limit is so that we can comply; 2) they notified us by phone message instead of giving us a formal written notice; and 3) their treatment of my wife was extremely unprofessional and possibly illegal (we have sexual harrassment laws in California).

Comcast has a whole presentation devoted to how much bandwidth their service has over DSL. I talked to the DSL people; they don't care if I run my connection 24/7 365 days a year. That's really what irks people about Comcast. It is very, very close to false advertising.

This story's been floating around since about 1998. At present, the point at which you receive a letter is 125-175 GB/month downstream. Upstream is more like 10 GB/month. Do it for two months and they'll cut off your service.

That's not a trivial amount. Most people (85%+) are 1GB a month or less.

However, if you actually run the numbers for what the service is capable of (200 GB/mo upstream, 2000 GB/mo downstream), even the heaviest users are well below.

The presumption is, if anyone's actually using that much bandwidth, they're either running a website or doing something illegal. The first is against TOS. The second, though, isn't always accurate. Certainly anyone who deals in large video files from, say, an HD camcorder, can easily accumulate hundreds of GB of raw material. But that same power user who attempts to FTP it to a friend or family member will be in for a surprise.

This is to rebut the post from Are you @#$^&* NUTS?! on Mar 14.

Comcast does tell you for LEGAL use. If you are downloading 60 gb of movies a day on a HOME account you are obviously breaking a LAW... I got an email from them because someone used my Wireless router to download PhotoShop 7 from a Limewire connection. Comcast was informed by a third party company who actually tracks movie/software piracy. So don't think even for a second that the items being downloaded can't be seen or traced. If someone is cutoff for abusing the system they are abusing it, and Comcast will tell you at that point what the abuse is...

FYI all ISP's can see and trace what you are looking at and downloading. Don't think it is just Comcast. They set their software to look for excessive bandwidth usage then they actually watch to see what is being done. If they see very large avi or mpg files with filesnames that are movie titles and it happens everyday all day you probably will be cutoff by any provider not just Comcast.

I hope Comcast never does set a bandwidth limit, that would hurt the people that don't abuse the system.

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Also if you are not contacted by a customer advocacy group of any company not just comcast, you may be to blame yourself for not updating your customer information with that company.

I work the phones for a large company for customer service. We lookup accounts by phone number. 75% of the customers calling in can't remember what phone number they had wneh they signed up for service, and then when the account is found they don't want to update the damn phone number???

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And I'm happy to say Communism is alive and keeping our country going. When the Majority says bring our Troops home and the Government say Up Yours we're staying where we don't belong, what else would you call it!!!

They should not have to specify the limit. Most of the people who use to much bandwidth are doing something illegal anyway. As far as spammers and virus transmitters they should be terminated immediately. I believe everyone should be required to take a test before they are allowed to own a computer. Stop doing the illegal downloads, and hosting websites from a residential account, and you should have no problems

I got disconnected without warning last week and so far have had no luck in getting a response from Comcast's abuse department (the telephone number I was given leads to exactly the same voice mail number that other users have reported). I haven't even had any letters at all from Comcast complaining of any alleged abuse, much less phone calls (which I couldn't have taken anyway because I'm deaf and the only way I can communicate over the telephone is via TDD). Comcast's Tech Support has been more accessible but their hands are tied. They report my account as "active but suspended", which presumably means I'll have to continue paying for it until I either can get to actually talk to somebody live and get the issue resolved or cancel my account and switch to something else (for the record, I'm on my backup dialup with Earthlink right now; I knew I'd be glad I kept that old account one day). I think my problem is the same as what others have been reporting, which is to say, excessive bandwidth usage - or what, at any rate, Comcast defines as excessive bandwidth usage. I'd be glad to sit down with Comcast and discuss the problem with them and reduce my usage to conform in future - if only I could actually talk to someone there!!! I even gave Tech Support my email address the other day (Earthlink and Yahoo) to pass on to the abuse department in hopes that they'd communicate with me that way, but so far, no dice. NOT a way to run a railroad (or an ISP, for that matter); cut somebody off without even telling them what they're supposed to have done wrong, then make the department they're supposed to discuss the problem with almost inaccessible. I wonder in my more cynical moments if they're actually trying to chase people off.

This all makes me very sad. Comcast is in the process of disconnecting my grandmothers HSI as we speak. They deactivated her email and that is one of the few ways she can keep in contact with her older sister in florida. It's much cheaper then calling her.
There's something wrong when a company advertises a service, then complains when you use what you pay for. They seem to be contradicting themselves.
Perhaps even more so is the fact that they seem to be turning people against each other when it is rally Comcasts fault for focusing too much on the profit margin while leaving customers to bicker because they won't maintain or improve their hardware.
Comcast is just abusing their customers and throwing them away.

We were just shut off by Comcast. It must be a case of someone stealing our wireless as we are normal users, and have been for 10 years with no issues. I did get a warning call, but it was not friendly nor did it help me to diagnose potential problems. It was like a last-chance collection agent, rudely demanding that I cease my abuse, without even asking me a single question. I was like huh? Wrong number, I don't even have kids online! He actually acused me of LYING on the phone! No info on how it could be someone else, or even just another abuser on the NOC. The worst is they couldn't give me info on how much I used and when (I asked). I am baffled because I spend almost $300/month with two cable accts that include premium TV, cable and phone in two locations. They obviously don't want my money. I am sorry I didn't switch ages ago. Comcast is the worst of all the cable takeovers (and one was horrible ATT) so it's crazy to pay for bad connection/bandwith and service, they are just enabling me to switch and tell others to do the same. I do understand that people are abusing the bandwith, but their approach to solve it needs to be more accurate and technical, not having thugs call customers with threats.

I agree wholeheartedly that comcast should be able to set limits to bandwidth usage. However, I also feel that they should post guidelines for those of us who use a lot of bandwidth. Take HughesNets policy linked in the article for instance. They tell you exactly how many mb per second you can download without risking going over the limit (and incidentally, its a very lenient limit, even the home plan [169mbs continously] would be difficult for all but the most determined P2P buff to go over). And by installing certain freeware software or simply looking in the one of Window's network properties panels, one can easily tell how much they are using. While I agree that giving these limits might cause bandwidth hogs to get as close as possible to the limit and maybe still cause problems, it doesn't change the fact that these people are still the minority, and, duh, Comcast can simply set a limit below the point where it would cause problems, so long as they actually disclose this limit. Or better yet, simply throttle down the transfer speeds for high bandwidth users. Problem solved. In any case, all they are doing is generating a lot of negative publicity, all the way back to 2003, which is sure to scare away far more than just 0.05% of potential new subscribers.